


Chang'e

by havocthecat



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Dark Agenda, Female Character of Color, Friendship, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Women Being Awesome, chosen family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havocthecat/pseuds/havocthecat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I don't want tea."  The woman licks her lips and her eyes dart toward the sound of boots scuffing on the stone of the entryway.  Her whole stance changes.  She moves with fluid grace, not awkward uncertainty.  Her eyes darken, the skin around them drawing tight.  Her teeth sharpen.  "But I am thirsty."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Chang'e

**Author's Note:**

  * For [subjunctive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/gifts).



> Thank you to my betareaders, springgreen, celli, and meganbmoore, who are amazing and wonderful people.

Miao Feng's hair is long and black and straight, a river of shadow falling to her knees. She stoops and sets her hair pins onto her cloak, then places two carved ornaments of the palest white jade next to them.

The stream runs clear in the moonlight, the water rushing over stones worn smooth by the years. It babbles almost as loud as the infant bundled into a reed basket and covered with blankets to protect her from the chill winter air. The trees whip about in the wind, their shadows painting the girl's face like ink.

Miao Feng unknots the ribbons at her waist and takes care as she folds them, the jade ornaments clinking against each other as she sets them down atop her hair pins. The dark blue of the sash is almost invisible, and the deep red of her bijia looks like blood. Even the golden embroidery is transformed into rust. The moon is kind to her, disguising wealth from bandits ready to waylay a weary traveler and providing shelter.

She pauses before pulling off her outer garments and builds a fire. The child is cold, but it is easy to construct a bower of branches to keep the wind away. Miao Feng gives her a wooden toy to play with. The carving will keep the child busy for some time, long enough for Miao Feng to bathe.

It would have been easier to leave the child in the abandoned house. Certainly she could not have moved; her limbs are too weak to crawl, and the winter weather would not let her get far. There is still danger. She cries if Miao Feng is gone too long, and the cries will alert those searching - still, after a month of cautious forays, still they were seeking her - and there were not many places outside of Beijing where one could hide from the sun without farmers taking notice.

Those that take notice of Miao Feng do not survive for long. She bathes tonight to remove blood and dirt from her skin, where she is dirtied from taking care of one of those too curious farmers.

The wind flays her bare skin with needles of ice. There was a time when Miao Feng had hated the cold. She feared bathing and its attendant vulnerability, especially in winter, and rushed through it. She no longer fears anything, and she shrugs off the cold without a second thought. Some nights, it is difficult to remember how fragile the child is.

Miao Feng plunges into the stream. The dirt sloughs off when she scrubs at her skin with sand. She has none of the perfumed soaps that she is used to. All of them have been abandoned in Beijing, probably stolen by the servants of her house. A cook in the Emperor's palace, one who worked within the Zijin Cheng before being tainted by scandal and forced to flee by whispers of treason that have grown too loud is bound to have no possessions left to her name.

She doesn't care. They are safe, the three of them. The infant has no name, not yet. Her youngest maidservant, Cheng Chin-lien, is accused of treason. Just or unjust, Miao Feng does not care. She loves her maidservant like a daughter, has protected her. It has taken work, but she keeps Cheng Chin-lien safe, beyond the reach of soldiers and officials, for a time, at least.

Her maidservant, the daughter of her heart, if not her body, had been heavy with child, and they had been forced to find someplace to stay. The baby had come early, sending them to shelter outside of the city, in a place of dubious safety.

Cheng Chin-lien lies abed, weak from blood loss. The child is larger than most newborns, and she damaged her mother as she exited the birth canal.

Miao Feng finishes her bath, hurried for the child's sake, if not her own, and dries herself. The wind helps. However cold it is, it serves its purpose, drying her and keeping those searching for her indoors while she is out and hunting.

The child wails, unhappy, as Miao Feng smothers the fire. Their house is nearby, unoccupied and half-fallen. She picks up the basket, so light to one of her strength, and walks home, a shadow among shadows. There is a fur wrap waiting there, a soft place for the girl to play, and a goat hobbled within. The stink of it fills the small room that Miao Feng and the child occupy, and it bleats at her, recognizing its source of food.

The banked wood of her fire still glows. There is a woman holding her hands over the the warm embers. She is slender, almost emaciated, with long, curly brown hair falling down her back, and dark, doe-like eyes that stare at Miao Feng, evaluating her. She does not eat much, it is clear. A commoner, Miao Feng would say, but what European commoner would travel to Beijing, much less hide in a home that is quite obviously falling apart? She's probably some rich merchant's wife who thinks that the best place to run off is when she knows no one in a foreign country.

Cheng Chin-lien is nowhere to be seen. Miao Feng can see no trail of blood, can hear no labored breathing. She takes a deep, slow breath to quell the fear in her heart, and hopes that her daughter is hiding, hopes that she is unharmed.

Miao Feng doesn't bother with her native tongue. The language of the Han is butchered enough in foreign lands; she does not wish for it to be butchered here. In the life she lived before the palace kitchens, she was a merchant's wife, and she had learned several trade tongues.

"I suppose you have run away from a cruel husband?" she asks, repeating the phrase in the few languages she knows. She breathes a sigh of relief as recognition lights up the woman's eyes.

"Aren't all husbands cruel in some way?" asks the woman. The twist to her mouth is bitter amusement. Despite herself, despite the annoyance at the woman foisting herself on them, Miao Feng finds herself in sympathy with this foreigner. It seems they are both well aware of the realities of the worlds which they inhabit.

The woman stands and runs her hands down the front of her dress. She wears a silk gown, the fabric shaped and tucked, her waistline molded by a corset. Miao Feng disdains such things, but, then, she supposes she would wear them if everyone around her did. The silk is fine quality, the kind a merchant might garb his wife in, should he wish her to advertise his wares, but the deep green, the same color as the forest leaves in the summer, is the color of a peasant's robe.

This woman, whoever she is, knows nothing about the Middle Kingdom. If she did, she wouldn't be hiding in an abandoned building, especially one reputed to host a jiang shi.

It no longer did, of course. Miao Feng had taken care of that little problem before she brought the child and Cheng Chin-lien in. It had been hard to maneuver close while avoiding its claws, but once she had, she'd stuck the death script to its forehead. That had let her shove the creature against a wall and keep it in place. She'd had to light it on fire to return it to its grave, and the scorch mark had proven impossible to remove, no matter how hard she'd scrubbed the wall.

"I had not expected that I would have a guest," says Miao Feng. She sets the basket with the girl down in a corner, out of easy reach. She is silent, the walk having lulled her to sleep. Miao Feng goes to her saddlebags and kneels, rummaging through her meager supplies. She draws out a small wooden box and flips it open, inhaling the delicate aroma of tea as it filled the room. "Would you care for tea?"

"I don't want tea." The woman licks her lips and her eyes dart toward the sound of boots scuffing on the stone of the entryway. Her whole stance changes. She moves with fluid grace, not awkward uncertainty. Her eyes darken, the skin around them drawing tight. Her teeth sharpen. "But I am thirsty."

Miao Feng smiles, giving the woman an arch look. If Cheng Chin-lien lies dead, the woman will suffer before she dies. She gives rein to the hunger within, and her vision darkens. "Not some hapless merchant's wife, then?" she asks. Her teeth are sharp, and her smile is feral. She studies the woman with more care.

The signs are there, if only she had looked for them. They are the same kind of creature, she and this foreign woman, strange and hidden in the shadows. The vampires came to the Middle Kingdom when Zheng He's fleet returned. That is why the fleet was destroyed, and why it will never be rebuilt, despite pirate raids and the loss of the tactical advantage their navy would give them.

She was turned by one of those that crept into her land. Miao Feng keeps her secrets well, even as a cook to the Emperor and his family. She keeps her secret still, even in disgrace and exiled from the palace.

"Hardly." The woman's smile matches her own. "Time to play."

"Introductions later." Miao Feng turns to stand next to the woman as the Emperor's soldiers spill into the room. She is not the one who poisoned his son, nor is her daughter.

It is discourteous, but they will adapt. This woman is not just the same kind of creature that Miao Feng is, she is a kindred spirit as well. They glance at each other, and their smiles widen.

The soldiers don't stand a chance.

***

When the fight is done, Miao Feng sighs as she looks down at her hands. They are splattered with blood, as is her clothing. She sets that concern aside and checks on the infant. The girl is fine, if upset at being rudely awoken by the clash of metal. She is not hungry and her wrappings are dry, so Miao Feng begins to look for Cheng Chin-lien.

"If you're looking for the girl you left here, she's dead," says the woman, kicking a corpse out of the way and lounging on the furs spread across the floor.

Miao Feng hisses as she crosses the room in a blur. She pins the woman to the ground, one hand around her throat. "Then so are you."

They tangle for a moment, evenly matched, before they pull away from each other, Miao Feng glaring and the woman looking amused. If she has to burn this woman to destroy her as well, she will.

"Don't be ridiculous," the woman says, stalking to the back of the house. Her long, curly brown hair sways as she moves. "She'd had a child. Since you hadn't bothered to give her blood to heal her, she was in pain. I was worried she was going to die. Since I needed a guide anyway, I made sure she'd come back."

"She didn't want it!" snaps Miao Feng. She tightens her grip, though the woman just stares at her, shocked. "She knows what I am, but she doesn't want that, not for herself. Don't you think I haven't tried to convince her to let me turn her?"

"I guess it's a good thing that I didn't bother giving her a choice," says the woman. Her face is expressionless, but there's an amused undertone in her voice.

There's something in the woman's voice that has Miao Feng giving her a searching look. "Do you have a name?" she asks.

"Katherine," says the woman. She kneels over Cheng Chin-lien and brushes her hair back from her forehead. There's tenderness, just for a moment, and then she looks over at Miao Feng and smiles once again. "I don't know this land at all. I could use a friend."

Miao Feng wonders if she should tell Katherine her name. If she should tell Katherine her daughter's name. Names have power, though their power is changed and mutated when a name is changed. She can take a new name, one easily understood by those who speak tongue.

"My name is Pearl," she says. She takes her daughter's hand and holds Cheng Chin-lien as she gasps, clawing her way back to life. There is fear in her eyes, fear that Pearl can soothe, though not as easily as childhood nightmares. "My daughter is Annabelle."

"One of the soldiers out there is still alive. I can hear him breathing," says Katherine, standing. "I'll drag him in here. She can get her transition over with."

It is the start of something. A friendship, possibly more. She has always wanted to see the world, and she has more than enough reason to now. Her daughter is with her, and they will be able to move swiftly. She may have been forced out of the safety she was in, but this night, this moment, it is no longer unwelcome.

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